While I want bourbon and vitamins, I was mainly just being funny there because I also L*O*V*E being at home with my kid in the summertime. I get bummed and depressed at times because I feel like I’m letting him become a vapid, braindead little thing at times, rotting in front of the tv or xbox or or or, or because I can’t stop working and take him to do all the fun stuff that I want to do with him — expanding his young mind, playing hard until we fall down, doing things people forget to do, seeing new things like caves and bugs and whatever else we can find. But I still love having him here with me and getting that time together, no matter what we do with it. There are, of course, days when my husband walks in and I pretty much RUN away, either to the basement, the shower, outside, into a quiet closet, anything, but that has more to do with the fact that the child is constantly noisy and I live a normally very quiet day by myself. Going from 5 daytimes of solid quiet time to a constant 7 days of never.ever.shutting.up would be enough to drive Mother Theresa to swear and consider injecting brandy into the fruit roll-ups.

I learned that I was a little odd in looking forward to break time with my kid when I sat down with some other parents from his class and said, “Who else is excited that it’s almost time for Christmas break?” and had women looking at me like I handed just landed on this planet. They seriously asked if they had heard me correctly and did I mean to say what I actually said?? And was I drunk? I said, really? You don’t? Nope, any change in their child’s daily routine was a horrible trauma for all involved, and having the kid home at that point was tragic and terrible, plus there was the whining and the demanding and and and. I guess we had equal parts of getting lucky and working at it in that respect; we just capitalized on the parts of it that he would like early on, and it mostly worked out well for us. Also helps to not have siblings and that he actually really likes us. And that we stocked him thousands of dollars of Legos. And a dog.

So I feel incredibly lucky to have this time with him, even if I am working my brains out and missing out at the same time. This is probably as close as I can get to having my cake and eating it too. Just some days, I need some liquor to wash it down!

I’ve definitely thought that year-round school can be better for a lot of kids. It’s certainly a lot more realistic to the rest of life after school. I don’t think my mind was able to adjust to not having summers just ‘off’ for years into adulthood. Year-round schools (obviously not homeschool, not sure how you break yours apart) also tend to have decent vacation schedules that make sense too. Always thought that I would like that as a parent. Two weeks off and poof, now you’re a 4th-grader. 🙂

It’s cool you’re getting this time with him; I have a lot of great memories of summer spent with my parents, who were able to adjust their work schedules to fit more closely with ours. It’s nice when parents actually WANT to spend time with their kids, even though the kids can be annoying little boogers sometimes.
Also I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet but I love your new picture heading!!

My dad was self-employed, and my mom did his bookkeeping, answered calls, placed supply orders, etc., not to mention dragging him out of bed to go to work at Hangover-Thirty in the morning. So, with that work, she was able to be home with me the vast majority of the time. She’d go to work somewhere else too when we needed the health insurance. I always valued that time having her around and that we were able to just pack up and head out for a week or two at a time sometimes when we’ve saved up the money to do it. We’re pretty lucky that we can come even close to that with our own kid; now we’re just finally to the time in his life that we can and need to start doing it more!

You’re cultivating wonderful memories with The Boy, even if you think you’re falling short on the Captain Entertainment angle. He’ll best remember quiet mornings spent on the couch than any “event” you might host. I know that’s the way of it with my childhood memories with my Grandmother.

My Mum said to me once that she couldn’t wait for our school holidays, and that even in work on a Friday, she’d sit there thinking “only four more hours, and they’re ALL MINE for the whole weekend!” To me, that says it all about the kind of Mum she was when we were growing up.

I don’t understand people not wanting to spend time with their kids- I always want to, because they are the funnest people I know. If they weren’t, it would kind of be my fault too. 🙂